Man, Kathy...Thats too bad about your daughter in law...But I got one even better,....My wife was an Obama DELEGATE during the vote!...And she still thinks he's great! An atheist....an Obama delegate...a pro choice, Gay marriage supporter.....Anti guns,...Anything normal, she sees as abnormal...always swimming upstream.Man,...I must be one heck of a guy to still love her!!If yall met her, Yall would love her too....Just dont talk anything like politics or religion....or anything about the above mentioned subjects...Thats how I do it!your friend,john

and they have a right to hate him if they wish. all i expect is that they be able to back up their opinions. i have specific gripes with bush. i have many specific gripes with obama. i can't stand mccain. i can give reasons and arguments for all my grips. i do not require that people agree with my reasons, only that they be able to articulate their own.

JBF...i'd love to have a conversation with your wife. we would have all kinds of things to talk about. i bet we could even talk politics :-D

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.....The greatest changes occur in their country without their cooperation. They are not even aware of precisely what has taken place. They suspect it; they have heard of the event by chance. More than that, they are unconcerned with the fortunes of their village, the safety of their streets, the fate of their church and its vestry. They think that such things have nothing to do with them, that they belong to a powerful stranger called “the government.” They enjoy these goods as tenants, without a sense of ownership, and never give a thought to how they might be improved.....

Truthfully I DO blame it on Bush. Had the Republicans and Bush done a better job we would not have these anti-Americans in office trying to make us slaves in their socialist government.

Al Gore got a Nobel Prize but not only did he invent the internet, but now has invented global warming

Yes, George and the RINOS could have done better, however the Socialist Movement would have Won this election anyways because they had more money ( Soros ) and a better BSer ( Obama ). Mccain was lame and he still is, Palin did not help because the media dissed her pretty good.

in most ways that count for me, bush was not a conservative....although, i suspect more a conservative than his father.

i have some issues about the way he fought in iraq, although i understand why he did what he did. my issue is with not changing tactics more quickly.

we should have turned afghanisan into a sheet of glass instead of dinking around trying to create a central government out of a bunch of backwards tribesmen.

he should not have expanded an already failing medicare program.

he should not have been so quick to follow the the advice of the financial advisers about bailing out banks. he should have sucked it up and let them crash....although history would not have treated him any more kindly for that.

most other things fall on congress...both parties.

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.....The greatest changes occur in their country without their cooperation. They are not even aware of precisely what has taken place. They suspect it; they have heard of the event by chance. More than that, they are unconcerned with the fortunes of their village, the safety of their streets, the fate of their church and its vestry. They think that such things have nothing to do with them, that they belong to a powerful stranger called “the government.” They enjoy these goods as tenants, without a sense of ownership, and never give a thought to how they might be improved.....

Others, who are these "anti-Americans" that you refer to? Even if you disagree with the policies, do you honestly think that they aren't doing what they believe is right for the country?

...Tim

Who decides who it is that "We the people" can chose from as a candidate base in the major elections? Who "controls" the major political machines? When is the last time that a really pro-American candidate ran (or was "allowed" to run)? As opposed to the "lesser of evils"? There is no way that it is coincidental that both of the major parties are taking different approaches to the same non Constitutionally authorized end. The evidence points to another group of controlling interests. But your guess is as good (or better) than mine as to exactly who that may be. But those not in "the good 'ol boys" club get politically destroy if they do not "play ball" with the "in" set - so there is little to no hope of breaking the cycle until "None of the Above" gets put onto the ballot of every election and primary. That's the only way "We the People" will be able to wrest control away from whomever it is.

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The opinion of 10,000 men is of no value if none of them know anything about the subject.- Marcus Aurelius -

I'm not a Bush hater. I'm voted for Bush twice. If it wasn't for his dimwitted policies, a guy like Obama would never have gotten elected. Those policies are too numerous to even begin to mention, but start with the invasion and subsequent distruction of Iraq.

I am curious about your take on "warrantless wiretapping" as advocated by Bush.

...Tim

"As advocated by Bush"? That was limited to only extra-national communications to/from suspected terrorist and terrorist organizations. In 2007 the Democrat held majority in congress legalized and expanded upon the concept. After the media had essentially gutted it's effectiveness by leaking a classified operation.

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The opinion of 10,000 men is of no value if none of them know anything about the subject.- Marcus Aurelius -

warrantless wiretapping is not really an accurate description, but i'll accept it since that's what it has been called. 1st, it was not a new policy, but it was badly in need of updating due to advances in technology. presidents since lincoln have used this method of intel gathering. it was limited, to our detriment, by congress later. the problem with any regulation, or deregulation is that it's use and abuse and in the hands of the current admin. as pointed out, the obama admin has not only kept, but expanded on some patriot act provisions. must be driving the NYT gang nuts! what are they to say?

my view on iraq has evolved. i was not in favor of that war at the time, even though it was totally justified under previous agreements and international law. i thought we should concentrate our attacks on afghanistan. after much study and after my brother has (by his choice) worked in afghanistan for 4 years, i believe my original assessment was incorrect.

first afghanistan: it is a s***t hole. fighting can only be done 6 months out of the year. the other six months, the enemy holes up and resupplies to come out just as strong in the spring. it is tribal. there is no way to "win hearts and minds". the people will always go with whomever offers the best deal. we call their government corrupt, but to them, it is the way things have always been done. we can not out spend radical islamists, neither can we out-terrorize the population. there is a way to win, but it would require flattening both afghanisan and parts of packistan. for a number of reasons, that is not wise or practical, not to mention that no leader has the stomach for it.

iraq: it needed to be done. it should have been done in the 90's but it was fortunate for us that it was left. there are limited ways to fight a war. you can overwhelm the enemy. you can outlast them. you can assassinate the leaders. you can make them fight on your terms. logistics in afghanistan made the 1st 3 next to impossible. the last was to make them come fight us in a place better suited to our capabilities. in any organization there are many foot soldiers, a good number of middle management who would really like to be in charge, and the real leaders. by drawing AQ into iraq, we degraded their leadership in a way we could not have done in afghanistan. we did not get osama, but he is their messianic leader, not their tactical leader. those middle management tactical leaders that were captured in iraq gave us good intel to capture and kill many others including some of the higher level leaders. while we were keeping many occupied in iraq, we were able to work the intel and capture/kill many others. http://www.globalsecurity.org/security/profiles/al-qaeda_leadership_losses.htmdo i think mistakes were made in iraq? yes. does that happen in every war? yes. we fight based on what we have learned in previous wars, but the last war is never the same as the next war.

the problem we have now is that we have muddled the mission and changed the rules of engagement. until we get that part straight, we have no business throwing more kids at afghanistan. are we fighting a war, or are we nation building in a country that does not consider itself a nation? the taliban is nothing to us. we do not need to fight them. we only need to make sure they do not give shelter to international terrorists. we can do that with the odd well placed bomb.

in the mean time, we have degraded once again our intel gathering capabilities. we have an internationally active enemy and we are fighting like school kids.

that's my short version :-)

BTW, i am not a republican. i am a conservative. i owe allegiance to no party, only to ideals.....not to be confused with ideas :-)

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.....The greatest changes occur in their country without their cooperation. They are not even aware of precisely what has taken place. They suspect it; they have heard of the event by chance. More than that, they are unconcerned with the fortunes of their village, the safety of their streets, the fate of their church and its vestry. They think that such things have nothing to do with them, that they belong to a powerful stranger called “the government.” They enjoy these goods as tenants, without a sense of ownership, and never give a thought to how they might be improved.....

Others, who are these "anti-Americans" that you refer to? Even if you disagree with the policies, do you honestly think that they aren't doing what they believe is right for the country?

...Tim

I haven't used the term "anti-american" because I am painfully aware of how the term itself has been turned into a joke about people who use it being rather bumpkin rednecks; the definition as I remember it from an interview with a gentleman who was an investigator in the committee on anti-american activities (Probably the same as the "red scare" - another colloquial term - but I can't swear that it was exactly the same.) Anti American(ism) is a set of actions which violate the constitution or spirit of the constitution in order to change the fundamental nature of the country in it's "operating system"; I realize that "spirit of the constitution" is a broad term but for these purposes it means - someone who would lie for instance about what a proposed bill is for fear that if people actually knew what the bill said they wouldn't accept it. - given the catastrophic loss of integrity and honesty in this country this could be pinned on nearly any group found to be lying about a bill. However, this was a hallmark and signature activity through the KGB when they were at the peak of their operations within the United States. -If you would like evidence to support my claim that the KGB worked very hard to undermine our institutions and even our way of thinking as Americans (our ability to think as americans - I can provide that (I have the summary portion of an interview, but I think it links to the 2 hour interview if you want the extended version.

EDIT: 11:58 PM - I just realized that the investigation I referred to was of "Un-American activities" - I suppose there isn't a whole lot of difference though.

wow! a whole nest of rightwingers. i'd never have thought i'd run up on a bunch of ya'll on a beekeeping site. i've found that trying to reason with conservatives is like going up against the borg. you're always out numbered and resistance is futile. it all makes sense though, conservatives,beekeeping, the borg, the hive-collective. when i've been assimilated do i get some of those cool mechanical claws, i believe they'ed work great for pulling frames. :evil: :-* :-D